The BEST episodes of Invader ZIM season 1
Every episode of Invader ZIM season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Invader ZIM season 1!
Invader ZIM is an eccentric alien soldier from the planet Irk. He was banished from the Irken Empire after nearly destroying his home planet on an early mission. After begging his superiors, the Almighty Tallest Red and Purple, for another chance, they decide to get rid of him once and for all. They trick him into going on a "secret mission" to an obscure planet at the edge of the universe, a planet with the unlikely name of Earth, in hopes that he'll die along the way. But their trick backfires when ZIM safely reaches Earth and begins his ever-so-subtle conquest of it. He disguises himself as a schoolboy, and now the only person who can stop him is one kid - Dib, a somewhat insane paranormal researcher, who sees straight through ZIM's disguise and is intent on stopping his reign of "terror". The only problem is that neither of them is very good at stopping the other.
#1 - Tak: The Hideous New Girl
Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 5/10/2002
It’s Valentines Day and everyone is celebrating by giving out meat valentines, but when a new girl named Tak arrives and starts giving out sausages, Zim believes she has a crush on him so he exploits the opportunity to examine human love rituals. However, when such doesn’t turn out so well, he decides to head home, only to discover later that Tak followed him home and that she is actually a member of the Irken race. Tak plans to take over Zim’s mission so she can show the Tallest that she is worthy of being an Invader, but that’s not something Zim is going to permit so easily so he vows to prevent her from doing this, as the Earth is his planet to destroy.
#2 - Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 8/24/2001
Zim finally finishes one of his self proclaimed brilliant inventions, a space-time-object-transfer device, in which he plans to send a giant robot into the past in order to put an end to Dib once and for all. However, when the robot isn’t compatible with the temporal field, he throws a rubber pig into the vortex instead, which turns out to be compatible and it causes Dib to crash his tricycle in the past. Zim decides to send many more rubber pigs into Dib’s past, which ultimately affect him in the future; though when Zim overdoes himself, he discovers that history isn’t something that should be messed with.
#3 - Battle of the Planets
Season 1 - Episode 27 - Aired 4/5/2002
When Zim goes to Mars to attempt to find a way to destroy the Earth, figuring that whatever killed the life on Mars may work for Earth as well, he stumbles across the face on Mars, which he later discovers that is actually the controls for a spaceship, in which the entire planet of Mars was the spaceship. Dib learns of this and he attempts to go to NASAPLACE in order to get them to see what Zim is doing, but they refuse to believe him as they can’t look at the monitors. Will Dib be able to find a way to stop Zim before he uses the red planet to squish all the life out of the Earth?
#4 - The Nightmare Begins
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/30/2001
The Irken race consists of beings that have desires of gaining universal domination. Their leaders, the Almighty Tallest Red and Purple, have just begun assigning Invaders, the elite soldiers who will capture the universe’s most dangerous planets. However, when Zim, an Irken soldier who was banished from the Irken Empire, returns and demands to be assigned a task as an Invader, the Tallest decide to send Zim to a “planet that nobody has ever heard of”: Earth. Zim gets assigned a cheap robot that is malfunctioning and he begins the trek towards Earth, but little does he know that a human child on Earth named Dib is already aware that he is coming, and plans to prevent Zim from completing his goal.
#5 - Dark Harvest
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/20/2001
When Dib finds out that Zim has no human organs, he attempts to exploit Zim’s ailment of head pigeons to get the skool’s nurse to examine Zim in hopes she will see the truth. However, when Dib blurts his plan out to Zim, Zim develops a device that will permit him to switch objects for organs, in which he begins to steal the organs of his fellow classmates in order to appear more human in time for his appointment at the nurse’s office.
#6 - FBI Warning of Doom
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 3/29/2002
Gir has recently been watching a movie he rented from the local mall, in which Zim just happens to be in the room when the FBI Warning is displayed on screen. Just as Zim realizes this, he gets a phone call from the mall saying they need the video back, in which Zim begins to panic because he believes that there is foul play at hand. When his computer tells him that the FBI must be an alien hunting group, he grabs the movie and makes his way to the mall, despite the fact that he doesn’t know what to expect when he arrives.
#7 - Germs
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/20/2001
After Zim watches an old movie where some invading aliens are defeated by some bacteria, he begins to study germs more. However, when he discovers that such germs truthfully are everywhere, he begins a crusade to kill every germ in his headquarters so that he can be safe, which is helped by the fact that Gir had some cleaning spray handy in the house; though when the cleaning bottle runes dry, Zim must attempt to go to the store and get some more, despite the fact that he knows just how many germs are out there.
#8 - Bloaty's Pizza Hog
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 9/7/2001
Dib believes he has figured out a way to successfully tunnel into Zim’s underground base, but when his father comes in and announces that it’s the Membrane family’s night out and that Gaz gets to pick the place to eat, Dib runs off saying that he will be back in time for them to leave. However, when Dib fails to arrive on time, Professor Membrane decides to wait until Dib gets back, which causes Gaz to become quite frustrated as she really wanted to get some of her favorite food; she decides to go find Dib at Zim’s place and despite the fact that Zim’s already taken Dib into an in-space laboratory, she refuses to miss her opportunity to eat out so she plans to let nothing get in her way.
#9 - Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 10/26/2001
It’s Halloween and the entire town is getting into the Halloween spirit; much to Zim’s dismay because he considers the entire concept to be insane and he doesn’t want filthy Earth children coming to his house. Meanwhile, Ms. Bitters sends Dib to an insane asylum because he has been acting crazier than normal, in which in truth he has been getting sucked into a nightmare world that was created due to his meddling with one of his father’s inventions. After finally getting out of the nightmare world and out of the insane asylum, Dib sees Zim’s house and decides to force Zim to come with him into the Nightmare world because he believes Zim will have the capability to put an end to all the madness, but will they manage to work together despite the fact that they’re enemies and that Zim didn’t want to help him in the first place?
#10 - Door to Door
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/29/2002
The skool is holding a candy drive in order to get some finances, in which the individual who sells the most chocolate bars will get a secret mystery prize. Zim becomes interested and he attempts to find a way to sell the most chocolate bars, which causes Dib to get into the contest in order to gain a defeat over Zim. Zim soon realizes, however, that he may have to take drastic measures in order to sell more candy bars than Dib.
#11 - Future Dib
Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/22/2002
Professor Membrane has just unveiled a world changing machine that will completely remove the entire need for fuel, though if the machine were to malfunction, it could cause a giant shockwave that would destroy all life on Earth. However, Professor Membrane refuses to turn the machine on until his children are present, in which Dib is absent because he is attempting to prevent Zim from sabotaging the machine. However, things soon take a turn for the worse as Dib falls into one of Zim’s traps and the crowd in front of Professor Membrane beings to grow uneasy over the fact that they’ve waited so long, so Professor Membrane decides to send Gaz to go find Dib and put an end to his foolishness.
#12 - Walk of Doom
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/6/2001
When Zim gets annoyed by Gir’s inept nature for the last time, he finally gets around to upgrading Gir’s guidance technology and he wishes to test its capability. Initial tests look good so Zim wants to take Gir into the city to test and see if Gir can get them safely back to their headquarters. However, when Gir forgets to bring the new guidance chip with him, Zim and Gir must find a way to get back home, despite the fact that they have very little understanding of the way the city functions.
#13 - Parent Teacher Night
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/6/2001
After another day at the Earth skool, Ms. Bitters reminds the children that it’s Parent Teacher Night and that all the parents must come to the skool at the end of the day. Zim becomes worried because his robotic parents aren’t programmed for such a task yet and he cannot permit them to blow his cover, so he attempts to help them become the parents they should be, but Gir’s carefree nature soon puts his plans in jeopardy.
#14 - The Wettening
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/27/2001
When it begins to rain one day, Zim becomes worried because he’s never experienced rain before. Dib takes notice of his fear and he coaxes Zim into stepping into the rain, only to discover that the Irken race has an innate weakness to water, which causes a burning sensation upon impact. Dib decides to exploit this new fact to create the ultimate weapon to stop Zim once and for all, but Zim himself attempts to find a way to protect himself from this new found weakness, which all leads up to a confrontation that neither of them would have expected.
#15 - Abducted
Season 1 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/12/2002
When Zim is attempting to explain to the Almighty Tallest that the humans are both dumb and tall, he gets interrupted when the doorbell rings and his transmission to the Tallest is cut short. The two individuals at the door claim to be human, but Zim doesn’t believe them and he attempts to tell them that their spaceship is jamming his signal; they respond by merely sacking both Gir and Zim and taking them to their spaceship. Will Zim be able to get back to his base and finish his report to the Tallest, and what will Zim do to the two aliens who dared to capture him?
#16 - NanoZIM
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 4/13/2001
When Dib finally manages to get a picture of Zim without him in his disguise, Zim formulates a plan to shrink himself down into a microscopic size to get into Dib’s body and perform a brain wipe to prevent him from remembering where he located the picture. Fortunately for Dib, his father has been working on some technology that may just help Dib stop Zim before it’s too late, though he’ll been to be careful because he’s extremely vulnerable due to the fact that Zim is inside of him.
#17 - Lice
Season 1 - Episode 31 - Aired 4/26/2002
When at skool one day, a child comes into class late because his head was itchy, which Ms. Bitters recognizes that it was due to lice. Before she can do anything, however, the lice infect the rest of the students in the class, so Ms, Bitters informs the Delouser, who proclaims martial law and the children are taken into separate rooms. However, Zim shows no sign of being infected by the lice, which causes the Delouser to take special interest in him.
#18 - Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain
Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 8/24/2001
When Zim’s headquarters are having security problems, Zim attempts to upgrade the security system and get the job over with. He decides to put Gir in charge of ensuring nothing goes wrong while he replaces the computer’s AI, but when Gir begins to mess around with things, he inadvertently causes the house to shut down along with himself. However, Zim soon discovers that Gir’s AI has been uploaded into the central hub of the house, which worries Zim quite a lot since Gir is being unresponsive and uncontrollable, which soon puts their mission in jeopardy.
#19 - Mysterious Mysteries
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/22/2002
When Mysterious Mysteries is having trouble in ratings due to their lack of stories, they decide to take drastic measures and they finally let Dib onto the show. Dib believes this is his best chance to reveal Zim for what he is and he plays a short clip of Zim and Dib in the woods, which actually makes the anchor of the series quite pleased. However, when Zim gets on the show the next day to attempt to prove Dib wrong, they soon get into a battle of words over the real events that occurred on that day as they both attempt to persuade the host of Mysterious Mysteries to believe what they have said.
#20 - Career Day
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/4/2001
Ms. Bitters is assigning students their mentors for Career Day through the use of an aptitude test and a machine. Both Dim and Zim attempt to get their desired professions on the test, in which Dib manages to get paired with a Paranormal Investigator while Zim gets stuck working at a fast food facility. However, when Zim misinterprets the 8 billion served sign and thinks that the individuals in charge of the company are the leaders of the planet, he becomes dedicated to his job in hopes of being promoted to Lord of All Humans. However, thanks to the alignment of the planets, Zim is about to go through some uncontrollable changes that could jeopardize his mission; which Dib is looking to exploit, though both Zim and Dib find their situations to go much different than they anticipated.
#21 - Rise of the Zitboy
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 8/31/2001
When Zim comes home from a lousy day at skool because he found out that Dib knows a flaw in his security system, Gir attempts to cheer him up by rubbing bacon oil all over his face. However, when Zim develops a pimple due to the grease, he fears that he will be considered abnormal and that it will jeopardize his mission. Zim believe he can use some acne medicine to get rid of the pimple, but when it only gets worse and when Gir draws a little face on the pimple, Zim believes all hope is lost; though Zim soon discovers the pimple has hypnotic powers and he hopes to exploit this new power in order to get Dib to reveal his secret.
#22 - Bestest Friend
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/13/2001
When Zim makes a huge scene over his inability to eat lunch food, he overhears one of the girls at school talking about how inhuman he seems to be and how he has no friends. In an attempt to appear more normal, Zim decides to spend time with a student named Keef, though Zim soon finishes his plan and he considers himself normal, so he tries to get Keef to leave him alone. Much to Zim’s chagrin, however, Keef continues to follow Zim around, so Zim decides to take unorthodox measures to ensure Keef leaves him alone.
#23 - The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot
Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/12/2002
When Professor Membrane invites some of his colleagues over to the house, they insult and mock Dib because of his hobby of paranormal investigation. Matters become even worse for Dib when Mysterious Mysteries begins to show a segment on Chickenfoot, a being that is obviously a guy in a suit. Dib decides to go on a crusade to prove Chickenfoot is a fraud in order to establish the fact that paranormal investigation also disproves the frauds along with proving the real mysteries, though will Dib be able to find the elusive Chickenfoot and even if he does, how will he manage to get the suit off of him?
#24 - Attack of the Saucer Morons
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/27/2001
Zim attempts to test some of the defenses that Earth has by taking his Voot out for a drive to monitor local police units. However, when a bumble bee crashes into his vehicle, Zim comes crashing down in the park, in which he heads home because he will be unable to recover it the next day. However, when a space cult known as the Saucer Morons discover the Voot first, Zim must find a way to get his vehicle back without causing him to lose his cover.
#25 - Walk for Your Lives
Season 1 - Episode 36 - Aired 7/12/2002
During Probing Day, the day where the Tallest evaluate the Invaders’ performances, Zim has Dib captured in a space-time-field prison which is keeping him in slow motion, in which Zim wants to perform experiments on him for the Tallest. However, when a malfunction causes the prison to explode, Zim finds a piece of explosion that is expanding very slowly; in which Zim believes he can end if he throws it into the city’s cesspool. However, when he discovers that getting the explosion to the cesspool is much more difficult than he expected, he finds that he may just have to use unconventional means to complete the task.